But what color is it?

Color is one of the most important parts of any product design. It’s often overlooked, but few parts have as much impact on the final purchase as the colors you choose and the emotions they invoke.

The first tool available to us for selecting the proper colors is "The Color Wheel". It has three main types of colors (Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary) depicted and allows you to quickly see the shades of colors that work together and those that don’t.

The 3 Primary colors are: Red - Blue - Yellow Since all other colors come from these 3, it's safe to say they are the foundation of color itself.

The 3 Secondary colors: Purple - Orange - Green These 3 colors are derived as you may have guessed from the 3 primary colors listed above.

The 6 Tertiary colors: Yellow/Green – Blue/Green – Blue/Purple – Red/Purple – Orange/Red and last but not least Yellow/Orange. These are obviously made from combining a primary color with a secondary color.

But exactly how does a Color Wheel work?

Colors on the wheel opposite one another are “complimentary colors”. The further away you get directly across from a color (left or right) the less the color will match the color you have selected. Additionally it is worth noting that the wheel is divided into ½ sections - Moving to the right from Red/Purple to Yellow/Green is what designers call the ‘Warm” colors and from Yellow/Green moving to the right up to Red/Purple are the “Cool” colors. They are called this because the emotion they evoke in a person can be described as “warm” or “Cool” …at least that’s the theory.

One thing we do know is color does evoke emotion in a person….since we want to create a positive interaction with the consumer and our packaging/product we should understand how the colors we select can start that emotional chain reaction.

Red: Sparks ideas of love, passion, heat and danger.

Yellow: Is a color synonymous with happiness

Orange: Retains the energy and welcoming of yellow, while keeping the heat and passion of red

Bright Blue: soothing, cool, and pleasant

Medium Blue: Coldness, feelings of loneliness and depression

Navy Blue: suggests formality, authority, and tradition

Green: Money, wealth, affluence but also nature and soothing.

Black: Commands respect. Simple bold with richness and honor.

Aqua: reminds of peace, calm and still.

As you can see there is a real psychology to the process of selecting colors. We have to keep this in mind as we develop our great new idea into that next big hit product.